The Lazarus Particle

by Logan Thomas Snyder

  That was before the Tyroshi mounted their current campaign of counterinsurgency with such shattering results.

  There were other factors, as well, of course. The entire movement was a mess. Overextended. Too big, too subsidized by that third or so of Coalition governments that had succumbed to some form of single-party totalitarian rule. True, those planets and their so-called governments tended to be amongst the most ardent supporters of the Irregulars, but only because it kept the Sovereigns off their own doorsteps. Give to the fight there so you don’t have to fight here— that sort of thing. Sure, it kept them in guns and butter, but at the cost of being beholden to thugs and strongmen. Promises had to be made; favors had to be exchanged.

  He had just finished washing his stubble and shaving goop down the drain and toweling dry his face when Soroya returned.

  “Ah, good. You showered,” she said, reaching out to trace the sculpted landscape of his abs appreciatively.

  “So, what was that all about?”

  “After,” she said dismissively. Taking him by the hand, she led him over to their rack.

  “After what?”

  “Your massage. Lie down.”

  He did, naked and on his stomach. He could hear the shift of fabrics removed and discarded as she undressed behind him. A moment later he felt her straddle the backs of his thighs, her hands coming down to grip his shoulders. Her grip was strong yet agreeably feminine. She spent a good deal of time working out the knots in his shoulders and the small of his back before shifting her weight further down, her hands trailing with it. By the time she had finished kneading his gluts, thighs, and calves, he was putty in her hands. The one notable exception revealed itself as she coaxed him onto his back.

  “Well, hello there,” she said, positioning herself atop him.

  Vichante started to object, to tell her he couldn’t. That they shouldn’t. Not after all that had transpired earlier. It was in poor taste, it was insulting to the memory of those they’d lost, it was a futile effort on her part—all of these excuses and more flashed through his mind in the short span it took her to settle into that neat up-and-down rhythm. By the time he finally opened his mouth to protest, all that came out was a choked-off groan of appreciation.

  He came within minutes, his whole body sliding liquidly into the throes of climax. The sensation was one of unburdening ecstasy mingled with gnawing shame.

  “I believe that is what your people refer to as a ‘happy ending,’” Soroya observed wryly after he had finished.

  “More or less. Happier than most, anyway,” he agreed as she rose from the rack and sauntered, still quite naked, across the room to wash up. “What did I do to deserve that?”

  “You came back.”

  “That’s setting the bar pretty low.”

  “Not these days.” She splashed water on her face and under her arms, drying with a nearby towel. Her breasts swayed appealingly each time she raised and lowered her arms. “Besides, you needed it. We cannot have you moping around the troops like you were; bad for morale.”

  Vichante bristled at the suggestion he had been moping. A vital intelligence-gathering operation had gone catastrophically wrong and men—good men, his men—had paid the ultimate price. And for what? Nothing. No appreciable, meaningful result whatsoever. The entire action was a blip at best. That was the galling part, the senseless part, the devastatingly tragic part. The dead men, he held letters to their families and loved ones in his trust. Protocol dictated he not only deliver them, but write a letter of his own to each of the families, as well. What was there to say? What possible solace could he mine from their sacrifices? Vichante shook his head.

  In place of that passing instant came a sudden expansion of clarity. Here again was Soroya in her element. Managing. Leading. Thriving. Her judicious calm tempering his wounded steel. She might have engaged a slightly less provocative word to better describe his state of mind, but as usual her instincts were spot on. They needed to project an air of redoubled purpose and unflinching determination, he especially.

  “Message received.” He sat up, rubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes. “I’ll pull myself together. Thanks for giving it to me straight.”

  “Of course, my love.” She started to dress again. “Oh, and no more free shots for Specialist DeCoud, either. Same principle.”

  Vichante flexed his jaw, still feeling a bit of lingering soreness. “No argument there.”

  “Good.”

  “So. What about that transmission earlier? Did the techs get it decrypted and verified?”

  “Definitely originated from a Morgenthau-Hale CCV,” Soroya said absently, having turned back to the sink. “Still no clue as to the substance of the message, but…”

  “But?” Vichante prompted after a handful of seconds.

  Still she hesitated. “What if you are wrong, Vichante? What if they now have a dog in this fight? If they have forged an alliance with the Tyroshi, we are in for even more death and destruction than we could have possibly imagined.”

  14 • STIRRING THE POT

  Jskaarl was waiting outside her personal hovel when the living manifestation of Clan Kerikeshaala finally graced him with her presence.

  “Report,” Kerikeshaala: Tj Yeleyhi ordered, barely breaking her stride as she breezed past him.

  Jskaarl followed like the whipped snarr pup he was. “One of our long-range patrols intercepted an Irregulars’ flight well outside of their so-called No-Fly Line.”

  Kerikeshaala nodded absently as she began divesting herself of the various trappings and light plated armor that together constituted her third skin. She was nearly down to the hidebound matte black body stocking beneath, her second skin, when she realized Jskaarl had paused, seemingly for effect. Flexing her mandibles against the sudden urge to snap at him, she snarled, “And?”

  “Our patrol gave chase, inflicting significant damage.”

  “Define ‘significant.’”

  “Three confirmed kills, my Tj,” Jskaarl said, his excitement thinly veiled. He genuinely believed he was bringing her good news. Perhaps even game-changing news.

  The tone of her voice suggested otherwise when she repeated, “Three confirmed kills.”

  Jskaarl’s face fell. “Yes, my Tj, as you say. Is this news not agreeable to you?”

  “No, it is not agreeable, you fool! Three confirmed kills? This is what we celebrate? A handful of human scum sent to meet their pathetic maker? At this rate it will be merely a millennium before we win this damn war!”

  As quickly as it set upon her, the flash of rage dissipated.

  It was replaced with a serene, almost reflective calm. “Oh, how I long for the days of overwhelming force and total annihilation,” she said wistfully. She began to strip out of her second skin despite Jskaarl’s continued presence.

  He failed to pick up on the rhetorical nature of her sudden change in mood, his face screwing up with confusion. “Tj? I do not understand. The current counterinsurgency is of your own devising, hailed by colleagues and superiors alike as a brilliant tactical shift—yet you lament its success? Why?”

  Kerikeshaala moved languidly through her hovel, toward the polished glass chamber in the far corner. She was of her first skin as she entered the chamber, choosing to leave the glass transparent as she engaged the operating system. She could have made it entirely opaque, or activated select panels strategically placed to conceal her genitalia, yet she chose not to. With the programming complete, she looked to Jskaarl. “Remove yourself from my presence.”

  Jskaarl hesitated, weighing the possibility this was some fiendishly clever test he had failed to anticipate.

  “Now, you fool.”

  With Jskaarl gone, she engaged the silica shower she had programmed for herself. Almost immediately she was enveloped within a swirling maelstrom of fine, pearlescent powder localized entirely within that chamber. The tornadic storm wrapped her from head to toe, the silica scouring and exfoliating her first skin. The relief it brough
t her was indescribable.

  It wasn’t long before thoughts of Jskaarl invaded her private reverie.

  Jskaarl was reasonably competent in handling her day to day affairs, but the very notion of ‘thinking outside the box,’ as the humans termed it, fairly boggled his regimented, straightforward mind. He was efficient and precise and often acted in her stead of his own initiative, but imaginative? No. Not a word to be associated with Jskaarl.

  When at last she had had her fill, Kerikeshaala disengaged the magnetic field. The maelstrom around her died as quickly as it had sprung to life, the magnetized silica shavings collecting in a small dune around her feet. A moment later they were gone, reclaimed by tiny vacuums in the semi-permeable floor for decontamination and future use.

  Emerging from the chamber, she used the ship’s simulacra setting to turn her hovel into a faithful recreation of a Tyro meditation bog. She sat lotus-style amidst a copse of petrified wraith trees, a dozen ashen bodies surrounding her like an honor guard while high above their skeletal limbs whispered conspiratorially. Drifts of gaseous fog tinged iridescent shades of pink and green scudded about at ground level on cushions of cool, moisture-heavy air. A chorus of triggerflies trilled lightly, almost just beyond the range of her hearing. Even the air itself had an agreeably fecund quality about it, rich with the cloying aroma of death recycled and life renewed.

  The effect was positively rejuvenating.

  She was ready.

  At her command a screen manifested itself before her, followed moments later by the inscrutably beaked face of Ndeeldavono: Zj Soliorana.

  “Ah, Tj Yeleyhi. Communing with our ancestors, we see. A most noble pursuit, one we wholeheartedly endorse.”

  “Thank you, Zj Soliorana. I find the experience to be most… enriching.”

  “Enriching.” The Zj seemed to approve of her choice of words. “As do we, as do we. So. To what do we owe the—” His eyes flicked up and down her seated form. She had neglected to don her second skin after the silica shower, not altogether by accident. “—pleasure?”

  “Why, I bring tidings from the Oviddian front, of course.”

  “Ah! Well, do not leave us in suspense.”

  “Just this day we have thwarted an attempted action against one of our most strategically vital installations,” she said, engaging in a bit of harmless hyperbole as all commanders were prone to do from time to time. “The enemy sustained several casualties before retreating behind their so-called No-Fly Line.”

  “That is exceptional news, and most welcome, indeed. We congratulate your success, Tj Yeleyhi.”

  “As you say, my Zj…”

  “Do you doubt our praise, Kerikeshaala?”

  “Of course not. Only the nature of our present position.” Before he could respond, she added, “I believe the time has come to shift strategy.”

  The Zj thought her suggestion preposterous. That much she could tell without being told. Just when she thought he was preparing to ask the very question that had so bedeviled Jskaarl, he surprised her.

  “Very well. You have our attention.”

  “An accommodation,” the Zj repeated. “Of course you know the saying.”

  “‘Accommodation is capitulation,’” Kerikeshaala recited. “Not applicable in these circumstances.” What she was proposing was anathema to all Tyroshi, she knew. What transpired next hinged upon the Zj’s willingness to look past millennia of history and tradition.

  Once again, the Zj proved himself a willing broker for her vision of the future.

  “Oh? We are intrigued. Do go on.”

  Kerikeshaala smiled with her eyes. “I suggest an exchange. Without condition, they arrest and transfer into our custody Commandant Soroya of Shih’ra, Flight Commander Vichante Harm, as well as several of their uppermost support staff.”

  The Zj regarded her dubiously. “And in exchange?”

  “In exchange?” Tj Yeleyhi laughed airily. “Why, my Zj, they would be traitors. I do not suppose I need to quote the policy concerning the treatment of traitors.”

  “You do not. Hmm.” Zj Soliorana seemed to practically titter with excitement as he considered her proposal. “You believe the outcome feasible?”

  “The counterinsurgency has proven most successful in quelling the enthusiasm and disrupting the momentum associated with the Free Oviddia Front. It alone has not broken their spirits, but it has laid the groundwork. The Front is fractured; intelligence suggests the Natives and the Nons are at odds with how to proceed. I believe that if we play to the Natives—more specifically, that if we offer them amnesty in exchange for the Nons I have specified as well as a promise on our behalf to leave their planet and not return—they will accede.” She paused a beat, then added, for effect, “Their resolve is frayed, Zj. Their morale is in short supply. I believe they are amenable to an alternative outcome.”

  “And you are prepared to present them with just such a solution, pending our endorsement?”

  “Ah,” Tj Yeleyhi said, allowing a tone of amusement to inflect her delivery. “Present, yes. Honor… not quite, no.”

  Zj Soliorana offered his best take on a human smirk. “Indeed. Now we come full circle.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Allowing that you are correct as to the circumstances, what incentive do they have to act upon the—” He worked his mandibles uncomfortably, as if the word itself were something he had to forcibly dislodge from within his gullet. “—accommodation you propose to offer?”

  “Why, the very thing that makes them human, Zj. These beings are irrational; they cling to coincidence, rely upon reason, and practically worship at the altar of predictable outcomes. When a possibility they feel is beyond scope or hope lands in their laps, they may regard it suspiciously at first, they may sniff and inspect and wonder at it, but surely enough they will come to regard it as being of the provenance of that silly creature they call ‘God.’ I believe the precise terminology is a ‘miracle.’”

  “Your proposal is most intriguing, Tj Yeleyhi. Unorthodox, perhaps, but intriguing nonetheless. Naturally you would remind us we said as much of your proposal to counter their insurgency, and you would be correct. We were skeptical. However, you have acquitted yourself adroitly in the matter, with results falling well within the acceptability matrix. Very well. You have our endorsement.”

  “Gratitude, my Zj. I shall endeavor that you do not regret it.”

  “Excellent,” Zj Soliorana said. When he continued, he seemed to be speaking more personally, even intimately. “No doubt you are aware of the consequences should this gamble of ours fail to pay dividends. The rapid ascent of your clan has not gone unnoticed by your peers. You are quite the subject of discussion in more than a few very prestigious circles.”

  “I suppose it was only a matter of time,” she allowed. Indeed, she well knew. She was not without her sources within the other clans. “Though I have precious little time for such discussions. My focus is fixed elsewhere, as you well know.”

  “Of course, of course,” he said. “Still, there are those among said circles who might resent such a rapid rise by a perceived upstart. We would assure you, Tj Yeleyhi, that we are not among them. We believe your ambition to be most commendable. It is no small thing, what you have accomplished. And if this latest gambit of yours were to succeed, why, we dare say the old guard would have every right to be concerned.” He paused, allowing her a moment to absorb the weight of all he was disclosing to her. “Naturally this would create certain… complications. Complications we are uniquely equipped to confront. Although you have proven yourself to be a most able commander, you are ill-prepared to face the battles you will have to fight in this arena. It is our belief that a strategic alliance would be most beneficial to both our clans.”

  “You honor me, Zj,” she replied with all due reverence to the prospect. Not that she was expected to oblige him with an immediate response. The customary grace period would allow her to secure the advantage of her position in other ways. “I shall
require time to consider the full scope of your generous offer, of course.”

  “We would have it no other way,” Ndeeldavono assured her. “Do not let thought of such things distract you from prosecuting your objective. Make no mistake, this is of paramount importance to both our futures.”

  “As you say, my Zj.” She bowed her head just so. “We shall speak again soon. This I vow.”

  “Indeed. Good hunting, Kerikeshaala: Tj Yeleyhi. End transmission.”

  As the screen dissipated before her very eyes, Kerikeshaala rose from the lotus position wearing only a hungry, denuding smile and her first skin.

  It was all falling into place. Soon the Free Planetary Irregulars would be broken and scattered to the solar winds, Ndeeldavono’s clan would be hers, and she would be Kerikeshaala: Zj Yeleyhi.

  But first, she had a coup to stage.

  “End simulacra sequence.”

  15 • DISCORD

  Come whatever else may, the chain of command was sacrosanct. The immersion chambers, as such, were reserved for the worst offenders of that rarefied chain. Certainly a deck rat laying into a flight commander not just once but twice qualified her for such a dubious distinction, and that was exactly how Alexia woke to find herself.

  She tried to rage but could find nothing to pound upon. She wanted to scream but couldn’t even hear her voice over the crushing din of silence packing her ears. And when at last she remembered her brother was dead and she was truly alone, not just in the chamber but in life, she cried and cried and never once felt a single tear or heard any of the deep, racking sobs that left her curled half-conscious on what she took to be the chamber’s floor.

  She stayed that way for days—or hours, or minutes. It was impossible to tell. Her mind started to play tricks on her. She was sure Dell was with her, but how could that be? He was dead. Wasn’t that why she was so miserable? And even if he weren’t, and was somehow with her, how would she have known? She would have laughed at the thought if her laughter didn’t die the moment it left her lips.